MISS HAGAR.
"Let me gaze for a moment, that ere I die,
I may read thee, lady, a prophecy:
That brow may beam in glory awhile,
That cheek may bloom, and that lip may smile;
But clouds shall darken that brow of snow,
And sorrows blight that bosom's glow."
--L. DAVISON.
Meantime, while the squire was throwing the household of Sunset Hall
into terror and consternation, the object of his wrath was enjoying
herself with audacious coolness at Deep Dale.
The family of Doctor Nicholas Wiseman consisted of one daughter, a year
or two older than Gipsy, a nephew called Archie Rivers, and a maiden
step-sister, Miss Hagar Dedley. The doctor, who was naturally grasping
and avaricious, would not have burdened himself with the care of those
two had it been anything out of his own pocket. The parents of Archie
Rivers had been tolerably wealthy, and at their death had left him quite
a fortune, and amply remunerated the doctor for taking charge of him
until he should be of age. Miss Hagar had a slender income, sufficient
for her wants, and was permitted a room in his house as long as she
should continue to take care of herself.
Deep Dale had once been the residence of a wealthy and aristocratic
family, but had by some unknown means passed from their hands to those
of Doctor Wiseman.
It was, as its name implied, a long, deep, sloping dale, with the forest
of St. Mark's towering darkly behind, and a wide, grassy lawn sloping
down from the front. The house itself was a long, low, irregular mansion
of gray sandstone, with a quaint, pleasant, old-fashioned look.
Evening was now approaching. The curtains were drawn, the lamps lighted,
and the family assembled in the plainly, almost scantily, furnished
sitting-room.
By the fire, in a large leathern arm-chair, sat our old acquaintance,
the doctor, with one long, lean leg crossed over the other, one eye
closed, and the other fixed so intently on the floor that he seemed to
be counting the threads in the carpet. Years have done anything but add
to his charms, his face never looked so much like yellow parchment as it
did then, his arms and legs were longer and skinnier-looking than ever,
and altogether, a more unprepossessing face could hardly have been
discovered.
By the table, knitting, sat Miss Hagar. Her tall, thin figure, and
grave, solemn face, made her look almost majestic, as, with her lips
firmly compressed, she knit away in grim silence. Unlike other
spinsters, she neither petted dogs nor cats, but had a most
unaccountable mania for fortune-telling, and had been, for years, the
seeress and sibyl of the whole neighborhood.
In a distant corner of the room sat the little _protegee_ of Miss Hagar,
with Gipsy on one side of her, and Archie Rivers on the other, regarding
her as though she were some sort of natural curiosity. And, truly, a
more lovely child could scarcely have been found.
She appeared to be about the same age as Gipsy, but was taller and more
graceful, with a beautifully rounded figure, not plump, like that of
most children, but slender and elegant, and lithe as a willow wand. A
small, fair, sweet face, with long, golden hair, and soft, dreamy eyes
of blue, and a smile like an angel's.
Such was Celeste!
Such a contrast as she was to Gipsy, as she sat with her little white
hands folded in her lap, the long golden lashes falling shyly over the
blue eyes; her low, sweet voice and timid manner, so still and gentle;
and her elfish companion, with her dark, bright face, her eager,
sparkling, restless eyes, her short, sable locks, and her every motion
so quick and startling, as to make one nervous watching her.
Archie Rivers, a merry, good-looking lad, with roguish blue eyes and a
laughing face, sat, alternately watching the fair, downcast face of
Celeste, and the piquant, gipsyish countenance of the other.
At the table sat Minnette Wiseman, a proud, superb-looking girl of
twelve. Her long, jet-black hair fell in glossy braids over her
shoulders; her elbows rested on the table; her chin supported by her
hands; her large, glittering black eyes fixed on Celeste, with a look of
fixed dislike and jealousy that was never to die out during life.
"And so you have no other name but Celeste," said Gipsy, trying to peer
under the drooping lashes resting on the blue-veined cheek. "Now, if
that isn't funny! Everybody has two names but you--even _me_. I have two
names."
"Yes, Gipsy Gower. There is something odd and elfinish in the very
name," said Archie, laughing.
"Elfinish? It's no such thing. It's a great deal prettier than yours,
Archie Rivers! And where did you live before you came here, Celeste?"
continued Gipsy, returning to the charge.
"With Aunt Katie," replied Celeste, softly.
"And where is she now?" went on Gipsy.
"Dead!" said the child, while her lip trembled, and a tear fell on the
little brown hand lying on her own.
"Do tell! and I've made you cry, too. Now, if that ain't too bad. Do you
know, Celeste, I never cried in my life?"
"Oh, what a fib!" exclaimed Archie. "You were the horridest young one to
cry ever I heard in my life. You did nothing but yell and roar from
morning till night."
"I don't believe it! I don't believe it!" indignantly exclaimed Gipsy.
"I'm sure I was too sensible a baby to do anything of the kind. Anyway,
I have never cried since I can remember. And as to fear--were you ever
afraid?" she asked, suddenly, of Celeste.
"Oh, yes--often."
"Did you ever? Why, you look afraid now. Are you?"
"Yes."
"My! What of?"
"Of _you_," said Celeste, shrinking back, shyly, from her impetuous
little questioner.
"Oh, my stars and garters! Afraid of _me_, and after I've been so quiet
and good with her all the evening!" ejaculated Gipsy; while Archie, who
was blessed with a lively sense of the ridiculous, leaned back and
laughed heartily.
"Well, after that I'm never going to believe there's anything but
ingratitude in _this_ world," said Gipsy, with an emphasis on the
"_this_" which seemed to denote she _had_ met with gratitude in
another.
But tears filled the gentle eyes of Celeste, as she looked up, and said:
"Oh, I hope you're not angry with me. I didn't mean to offend you, I'm
sure. I'm _so_ sorry."
"Oh, it's no matter. Nobody minds what they say to me. I'm used to it.
But it's so funny you should be afraid. Why, I never was afraid in my
life."
"That's true enough, anyway," said Archie, with an assenting nod.
"There's Guardy now. Oh! won't he be awful when I get home--but laws!
who cares! I'll pay him off for it, if he makes a fuss. I sha'n't be in
his debt long, that's one comfort."
"Do you remember how dolefully Jupiter looked as he came in for you, all
dripping wet; and when you told him you wouldn't go, he----" and
overcome by the ludicrous recollection, Master Archie again fell back in
a paroxysm of laughter.
"What a fellow you are to laugh, Archie!" remarked Gipsy. "You astonish
me, I declare. Do you laugh much, Celeste?"
"No, not much."
"That's right--I don't laugh much either--I'm too dignified, you know;
but somehow I make other people laugh. There's Archie now, for
everlasting laughing; but Minnette--do you know I never saw her laugh
yet--that is, really laugh. She smiles sometimes; not a pleasant smile
either, but a scornful smile like. I say, Minnette," she added, raising
her voice, "what is the reason you never laugh?"
"None of your business," rudely replied Minnette.
"The Lord never intended her face for a smiling one," said Miss Hagar,
breaking in, suddenly. "And you, you poor little wild eaglet, who, a
moment ago, boasted you had never wept, you shall yet shed tears of
blood. The bird has its eyes put out with red-hot iron before it can be
made to sing sweetly; and so you, too, poor bird, must be blinded, even
though you should flutter and beat yourself to death, trying to break
through the bars of your cage."
"Humph! I'd like to see them trying to put my eyes out," said Gipsy. "I
guess I'd make them sing, and on the wrong side of their mouths, too--at
least, I think I should!"
"Oh, Miss Hagar, tell us our fortunes--you haven't done so this long
time," exclaimed Archie, jumping up. "Here is Gipsy wants to know hers,
and Celeste's, too; and as for me, I know the future must have something
splendid in store for so clever a fellow, and I'm anxious to know it
beforehand."
"Don't be too anxious," said Miss Hagar, fixing her gloomy eyes
prophetically on his eager, happy face; "troubles are soon enough when
they come, without wishing to forestall them."
"Why, Miss Hagar, you don't mean to say I'm to have troubles?" cried
Archie, laughing. "If they do come, I'll laugh in their face, and cry,
'Never surrender.' I don't believe, though, my troubles will be very
heavy."
"Yes, the heaviest troubles that man can ever know shall be thine," said
the oracle, in her deep, gloomy voice. "The day will come when despair,
instead of laughter, will fill your beaming eyes; when the smile shall
have left your lip, and the hue of health will give place to the dusky
glow of the grave. Yes, the day will come when the wrong you may not
quell shall cling to you like a garment of flame, crushing and
overwhelming you and all you love, in its fiery, burning shame. The day
will come when one for whom you would give your life shall desert you
for your deadliest enemy, and leave you to despair and woe. Such is the
fate I have read in the stars for you."
"La! Archie, what a nice time you're going to have," said the
incorrigible Gipsy, breaking the impressive silence that followed the
sibyl's words--"when all that comes to pass! It will be as good as a
play to you."
"Miss Hagar must have sat up all last night getting that pretty speech
by heart," said Minnette, fixing her mocking black eyes on the face of
the spinster. "How well she repeated it! She'd make her fortune on the
stage as a tragedy queen."
"Scoffer!" said the sibyl, turning her prophetic eyes on the deriding
face of the speaker, while her face darkened, and her stern mouth grew
sterner still. "One day that iron heart of thine shall melt; that heart,
which, as yet, is sealed with granite, shall feel every fiber drawn out
by the roots, to be cast at your feet quivering and bleeding, unvalued
and uncared for. Come hither, and let me read your future in your eyes."
"No, no!" said Minnette, shaking back, scornfully, her glossy black
hair. "Prate your old prophecies to the fools who believe you. I'll not
be among the number."
"Unbeliever, I heed it not!" said Miss Hagar as she rose slowly to her
feet; and the light of inspiration gathered in her eyes of gray, as,
swaying to and fro, she chanted, in a wild, dirge-like tone:
"Beware! beware! for the time will come--
A blighted heart, a ruined home.
In the dim future I foresee
A fate far worse than death for thee."
Her eyes were still riveted on the deriding face and bold, bright eyes,
that, in spite of all their boldness, quailed before her steady gaze.
"Good-gracious, Miss Hagar, if you haven't nearly frightened this little
atomy into fits!" said Gipsy. "I declare, of all the little cowards ever
was, she's the greatest! Now, if I thought it wouldn't scare the life
out of her, I'd have my fortune told. If everybody else is going to have
such pretty things happen to them, I don't see why I shouldn't, too."
"Come here, then, and let me read thy fate," said Miss Hagar. "The
spirit is upon me to-night, and it may never come more."
"All right. Archie, stop grinning and 'tend this little scary thing.
Now, go ahead, Miss Hagar."
The seeress looked down solemnly into the dark, piquant little face
upturned so gravely to her own; into the wicked brown eyes, twinkling
and glittering with such insufferable mischief and mirth; and, bending
her tall body down, she again chanted, in her dreary tone:
"Thou wast doomed from thy birth, oh, ill-fated child;
Like thy birthnight, thy life shall be stormy and wild;
There is blood on thine hand, there is death in thine eye,
And the one who best loves thee, _by thee shall he die_!"
"Whew! if that ain't pleasant! I always knew I'd be the death of
somebody!" exclaimed Gipsy. "Wonder who it is going to be? Shouldn't be
s'prised if 'twas Jupiter. I've been threatening to send him to Jericho
ever since I can remember. La! if it comes true, won't Minette, and
Archie and I be in a 'state of mind' one of these days! I say, Celeste,
come over here, and let's have a little more of the horrible. I begin to
like it."
"Yes, go, Celeste, go," said Archie, lifting her off her seat.
But Celeste, with a stifled cry of terror, covered her face with her
hands, and shrank back.
"Coward!" exclaimed Minnette, with a scornful flash of her black eyes.
"Little goose!" said Gipsy, rather contemptuously; "what are you afraid
of? Go! it won't hurt you."
"Oh, no, no!--no, no!--no, no!" cried the child, crouching farther back
in terror. "It's too dreadful. I can't listen to such awful things."
"Let her stay," said Miss Hagar, seating herself moodily. "Time enough
for her--poor, trembling dove!--to know the future when its storm-clouds
gather darkly over her head. Let her alone. One day you may all think of
my words to-night."
"There! there! don't make a fool of yourself any longer, Hagar,"
impatiently broke in the doctor. "Leave the little simpletons in peace,
and don't bother their brains with such stuff."
"Stuff!" repeated Miss Hagar, her eyes kindling with indignation. "Take
care; lest I tell _you_ a fate more awful still. I speak as I am
inspired; and no mortal man shall hinder me."
"Well, croak away," said her brother, angrily, "but never again in my
presence. I never knew such an old fool!" he muttered to himself in a
lower tone.
He started back almost in terror, as he ceased; for standing by his
side, with her eyes fairly blazing upon him with a wild, intense gaze,
was the elfish Gipsy. She looked so like some golden sprite--so small
and dark, with such an insufferable light in her burning eyes--that he
actually shrank in superstitious terror from her.
Without a word, she glided away, and joined Archie in the corner, who
was doing his best to cheer and amuse the timid Celeste.
During the rest of the evening, Gipsy was unusually silent and still;
and her little face would at times wear a puzzled, thoughtful look, all
unused to it.
"What in the world's got into you, Gipsy?" asked Archie, at length, in
surprise. "What are you looking so solemn about?"
"Archie," she said, looking up solemnly in his face, "am I _possessed_?"
"Possessed! Why, yes, I should say you were--possessed by the very
spirit of mischief!"
"Oh, Archie, it's not that. Don't you know it tells in the Bible about
people being possessed with demons? Now, Archie, do you think I am?"
"What a question! No; of course not, you little goose. Why?"
"Because when _he_," pointing to the doctor, "said what he did, I just
felt as if something within me was forcing me to catch him by the throat
and kill him. And, Archie, I could hardly keep from doing it; and I do
believe I'm possessed."
This answer seemed to Master Archie so comical that he went off into
another roar of laughter; and in the midst of it, he rolled off his seat
upon the floor--which event added to his paroxysm of delight.
The doctor growled out certain anathemas at this ill-timed mirth, and
ordered Master Rivers off to bed. Then Miss Hagar folded up her work,
and taking Celeste with her, sought her own room, where a little
trundle-bed had been prepared for the child. And Minnette--who, much
against her will, was to share her room with Gipsy, for whom she had no
particular love--got up and lit the night-lamp, and, followed, by the
willful fay, betook herself to rest.
The next morning dawned clear, sunshiny and bright. Immediately after
breakfast, Gipsy mounted Mignonne, and set out to encounter the storm
which she knew awaited her at Sunset Hall.